


out of tune

by dizzy



Series: alittlewavey fic-a-thon [12]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-11-02 10:54:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20721509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: There's a piano in the first London flat. It was there when they moved in, and it's there when they leave.





	out of tune

The piano that sits in his bedroom is badly out of tune. Sometimes he presses his fingers to the keys just to hear the wrongness of the sound. He bangs his fingers against them and the plink plonk is unpleasantly satisfying; it's not beauty, it's not music. It's noise and it clutters the room just like his thoughts clutter his head. 

Phil says they should just ring someone to come and fix it up. He says Dan knows how to play, after all. 

Dan argues that he barely does. He argues it angrily, and it's not because he really thinks that Phil is wrong. It's just because he hates that Phil looks at a broken thing and tries to think of how to fix it. 

Maybe the piano just isn't ready to work the way it should just yet. Maybe it needs to live as a dysfunctional mess just a bit longer.

*

They get drunk one night. 

"Play me a song," Phil demands. 

Phil's beautiful like this. His hair's a mess and pushed back from his forehead, his eyes are bright and his smile is happy. 

It's been a good day. It's going to be a better night. 

And Phil wants to hear a song. Dan likes giving Phil things Phil wants. It feels so rare that he actually can, so he presses his palms flat to the floor and hoists himself up on wobbling legs. "C'mon," he says, holding a hand down to Phil. 

"Can't," Phil says, whining. "Legs." 

"Yes, you have them," Dan notes. "They're nice." 

"Aw, you think my legs are nice?" 

"I think your everything is nice." 

Phil beams at him. Dan beams back. 

Then he remembers the mission. "Get up," Dan says again. 

"But, legs-" 

"Are what you stand on." 

"Mine don't work." Phil pouts. 

"Have you tried?" 

Phil sighs. He gets to his knees first, then to his feet. He looks down. "Good job," he says to his legs. "You did it."

Dan pats Phil on the shoulder. "You did it," he says, just to Phil. Not specifically to his legs. "Now what song do you want to hear?" 

Phil leans into Dan. "Do the one about big butts." 

"Phil, I don't know how to play The Thong Song on piano." 

"Well, not with that attitude, you don't." Phil grabs Dan's ass and gropes a bit. 

*

The piano still doesn't always work right, but it's faring a little better than it was at the start. 

Dan's tried fixing it. He did ring someone and had them come to tune it. 

They said it was a sturdy old machine. They said it looks like it's seem some years of wear and tear. They said the phrase 'hard love.' 

Dan sits on the bench and stares at it. 

Hard love. 

That sounds about right. 

He starts to play the first keys of a Muse song. 

Well, not that. That doesn't sound right. But he's not sure he can really blame the piano. He's probably just forgotten how the song goes. That happens to him; he tries hard and he learns something and he thinks he's good at it and then one day this voice in his brain says he's actually quite shit and why does he even bother? 

And he doesn't touch it again for months. He reaches up and strokes his hand over the wood. Does hard love mean it's been loved hard? Or does it mean that the love it deserved was too hard to attain? 

He doesn't know how many lifetimes this piano has lived. He knows the one it has now, though; witness to so many nights of Dan falling apart, of Dan pulling himself back together. To fighting and fucking and crying and conversations about their future. 

To video game marathons and singalongs where they make up most of the words and awful phone calls and amazing ones. The nights they still just stay up talking until the sun rises. 

Dan plays the start of the same song over. It sounds nicer this time. 

Maybe the tuning didn't quite take the first time, but he's not going to give up on it yet. 

*

"Everything is dusty. How is there so much dust?" Phil asks, face scrunched up. 

He's going to sneeze. He's been sneezing since they walked in the door, their first time home after months of touring. 

"Dust? You care about the dust? I'd think it was your plant carcasses you'd be most concerned about," Dan says. 

"They're fine." Phil waves hand. (They are definitely not fine.) "We had someone come and water them. Why didn't we have someone clean too?" 

Dan steps into his room, a sanctuary of design choices he always regrets more or less as soon as they're made. 

Phil's right. There is a fuck of a lot of dust. He reaches out and draws his finger across the closed lid of the piano. It leaves a line of slightly more vibrant wood and his finger smudged with gray. 

He doesn't realize Phil's followed him in at first, but his skin prickles after a few seconds. He's not sure how, but he can always just feel when he's not alone. (Especially when it's Phil.) "Play me a song?" Phil asks. 

They should be unpacking. Starting laundry. Sorting out food. Ordering some groceries. Figuring out how to try and evade the jet lag. 

Dan sits down at the piano and lifts the lid. The keys greet him, warm and familiar. He presses a few of them all in a row. It's out of tune again. 

He starts to play the most familiar song in both of their lives right now, and Phil laughs deep and warm behind him and starts to sing, "Whenever I'm alone..." 

*

"Are you going to miss it?" Phil asks, standing in the doorway. 

The room is so empty now. It's just Dan and the piano, and Phil looking on. 

Dan stares at it. It's just a piano. It's an inanimate object. It won't miss him when he's gone. 

Will he miss it? 

"I don't know," he says. He looks at Phil, wearing his glasses and faded gray t-shirt. He's got a roll of tape in his hand and they're both surrounded by boxes. "I think I'll get a new one, though." 

"But it won't be the same." Phil's giving puppy eyes to the piano. He didn't get the inanimate object memo. He never really does. Phil's the sort of guy who apologizes to table corners when he bruises his shin on them. 

"Yeah," Dan says, rolling his eyes. "The new one will actually work." 

It's hours of packing and pizza and laughter with friends before he returns. It's only just for one last check around, to make sure he hasn't forgotten anything. He pulls open every drawer and looks in every corner. 

Then he walks back to the piano. He stares down at the keys like maybe if he looks hard enough he'll memorize them, and then carefully pulls the lid over them. He walks out of the room and turns the light off behind him. 

Maybe the next person will love it a bit more gently.


End file.
